


Unquiet Slumbers

by Belle



Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-17
Updated: 2007-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:14:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1635893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belle/pseuds/Belle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Claire is visited by three ghosts and is comforted by her husband(s)  though not quite in that order. SPOILER WARNING: Based on speculation for a possible Book 7 plotline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unquiet Slumbers

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the last line of Emily Bronte's <u>Wuthering Heights</u>.  
> Frank's speech comes from chapter 7 of <u>Voyager</u>; Geilie's comes from chapter 62 of <u>Voyager</u>.  
> While this has no direct spoilers, this is based on speculation for a possible Book 7 plotline (thanks to an excerpt that is, unfortunately, no longer up on Gabaldon's website.) As such, the scenario envisioned here may or may not happen in Book 7.  
> Many thanks to Firiel and Lady Grey for beta-ing and their extremely helpful comments.
> 
> Written for ShadowValkyrie

 

 

The first ghost came before midnight.

As I lay alone in my too large bed, unable yet again to fall asleep, I wondered why it was that one could feel so tired during the day but still remain wide awake when night came. There had been no medical emergencies for me today. It was a shame, in a way - being forced to work, to concentrate on someone else's pain would have tired me out a great deal. I could always fall asleep almost instantly after long shifts at the hospital.

_But that was in another land. And besides..._

Pushing that thought out of my head (I needed no reminder of who was dead and which of my other loved ones were far away, well beyond my reach), I instead focused on the main problem troubling me: I needed to find some way of getting safe passage to England for my third husband and his son. Both loyal to the King, they would not switch sides, and neither would be welcome here, after.

As I tried to imagine what Jamie would do faced with this seemingly impossible task (bribe the harbourmaster?), I heard my first husband's voice.

_"Are some people destined for a great fate, or to do great things? Or is it only that they're born somehow with that great passion - and if they find themselves in the right circumstances, then things happen? It's the sort of thing you wonder, studying history...but there's no way of telling, really. All we know is what they accomplished. But, Claire, they paid for it."_

Yes, pay for it they did. Was I merely remembering that conversation with Frank, or was it truly the ghost of my first husband, with an almost gloating reminder that I had wound up here as a result of the choices I had made?

It was oddly fitting to think of Frank and to believe I was hearing his voice, with me upon my third marriage. Frank I had loved before we were married. I had not loved Jamie when we married, but that came soon after, one of the great passions of my life.

With John, things were quite different as we were in no danger of falling in love with each other. For John had been in love with Jamie for many years, and now Jamie was dead. I doubted that either of us would ever fall in love again.

After surviving the fire, Jamie and I had felt that we'd survived the greatest obstacle. Upon arriving in Wilmington, we'd learned that Marsali, our surrogate daughter, was pregnant. It would be her fifth child and the first one since Henri-Christian, who was a dwarf. And so while I stayed behind in preparation for the birth, Jamie had sailed back to Scotland, alone, to get that damned printing press.

His ship had sunk on the way back - all souls drowned. The very thought of it made my stomach clench. Jamie had always hated sailing; he got seasick even on a rowboat.

It was then, as I tried yet again not to picture the dark waves closing over Jamie's red hair, that I heard the voice of my second ghost.

_"I'm sorry I shall have to take the girl...Brianna? That's the name, isn't it? What luck ye should come to see me, aye? The last of Lovat's line. I'd never ha' kent it, otherwise. I thought they'd all died out before 1900."_

The fine hairs on my arm rose. She'd gone by many names, but I'd known her as Geilie Duncan. Like me, she had traveled from the twentieth century to the eighteenth. Unlike me, she had not come by accident, but had come with a purpose. Geilie had wanted to change the past by establishing Charles Stuart on the throne of Scotland. After Culloden, she had become obsessed with other ways of restoring independence to Scotland. Geilie had a fanatical interest in, among other things, Scottish nationalism, and had believed in the prophecy of the Brahan Seer: that a new ruler of Scotland would spring from Lovat's line.

Lord Simon Lovat, known as the Old Fox, was Jamie's paternal grandfather. His great-granddaughter, therefore, was Brianna. I did not know - nor did I ever want to - what Geilie had planned for her return to the twentieth century. Whatever she had wanted with my daughter was not good. But Geilie would never lay her hands on any of my family again.

Had he been here beside me when I'd heard these voices, Jamie, superstitious Scotsman that he was, would have been up in a flash, up and then outside urinating on the fenceposts to keep the ghosts at bay.

Jamie had often had supernatural dreams. (As I'd pointed out to him once, this was somewhat ironic given that _I_ was the one who'd nearly been convicted of witchcraft.) He had dreamed of Brianna in the future, both before he'd met her and after she'd left us.

I could not deny that the echo of Geilie's words had struck a chord within me. Brianna had gone back through the standing stones to the twentieth century, along with her husband and children. And although Geilie had died over ten years ago, I had seen her green eyes many times since then, in the face of my son-in-law, Roger, her descendant.

Thinking of Scotland then, I remembered something that I had said once to Roger. Standing in the Scotland of the 1960s, looking at a 'Free Scotland' sign, I had asked him, the historian, whether he thought, without Culloden and the resulting festering resentment the English occupation had created, that Scotland could have survived over two hundred years of union with England while still keeping such a strong hold over its own identity. Geilie had grown up in that atmosphere, but she was crazy enough to believe that she could come to the past and change it.

Trying to shake the memory of Geilie's words from me like water drops, I told myself Bree would be all right. After all, she did have a MacKenzie with her and between the two of them, they were a force to be reckoned with.

Was my subconscious parodying A Christmas Carol, with these ghosts visiting me? A pity that Dickens wouldn't write for another hundred or so years. I could do with a nice, long novel of his to lose myself in on a night like tonight.

Instead of that, I decided that a drink would do quite nicely. Perhaps some milk - I'd always heated milk for Brianna when she couldn't sleep.

Sneaking quietly out of my room, mindful of the way the oak door creaked, I crept down the hall, intending to go to the kitchen. But then I saw that the door to John's study was ajar, with light flickering inside.

I stood there in the hallway, debating with myself for a minute. _You're married to the man, after all_ , I told myself. _Get a grip, Beauchamp._

The life expectancies being what they were here in eighteenth century America, being widowed was a common occurrence and remarriage was often a necessity. There would be some gossip, to be sure, but perhaps not as bad as I imagined. Or was it my guilty conscience, for remarrying so soon after Jamie's death? After initially rejecting him, I had been persuaded by John's arguments - primarily the protection that marriage to him could offer Fergus, Marsali and their children. Young Ian could take care of himself. For myself, the protection did not matter much. But I had promised Jamie that I would look after the children and that was a promise I intended to keep.

Nonetheless, I could not decide whether it was less flattering that people believed I'd married Lord John for his money or because I had been secretly lusting after my husband's friend for years.

I knocked on the door. "It's me," I called.

"Come in."

Pushing the door, I saw that John was in the process of writing letters. He placed his quill back into the pot and moved the papers to the side of his desk. Fair enough - John knew full well that I was involved with the revolutionaries. I had agreed not to come into his study when he wasn't here; he, in turn, would not question me about my activities.

He looked up at me. "Did you get the herbs I'd left for you?"

I smiled. "Yes. Thank you." Frank had brought me flowers, almost always after an argument. The rare occasions when he came home with a bouquet not meant in apology, I suspected it to be a by-product of his adulterous guilt. Or perhaps that he liked walking through the university halls carrying the flowers, as a way of cementing his appearance in front of his colleagues and the department receptionist. Those flowers always showed their age for they arrived home half-wilted. Jamie had brought me flowers once, and only then because he was following Roger's example. John, in contrast, brought me herbs. I had made a half-hearted effort to weed and tend to the garden here, but had not kept up with it. It somehow seemed to be too much work. John, bless him, did not press me on the garden, though I was sure he had noticed. Instead, he'd asked me what I needed and then had endeavored to bring them to me on a routine basis.

"Thank you," I said again. "I am most appreciative."

"My pleasure," he said, with a small wave of his hand to dismiss the subject. He looked at me closely. "Are you feeling well?"

"I couldn't sleep," I admitted.

A faint smile crossed his lips. "Neither could I. I'd thought I was the only one still awake, though."

"I was going to get some food from the kitchen."

John reached down to open a drawer. Pulling out a bottle and placing it on the desk, he proceeded to take two glasses from the sideboard and poured some brandy into both of them. He did this all silently and I accepted my glass without comment.

"What is it that the gospel of Matthew says? 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' Not quite true, is it?"

I shivered, a sudden chill running up my spine. That had been Frank's favourite Biblical quotation, one he'd repeated to me and Brianna many times over the years.

"Are you cold? Shall I fetch you a blanket?"

"No," I said. "Just a ghost walking on my grave."

He reached across the desk for my hand and held it, giving me the best comfort that he could. We sat like that for a while, letting minutes go by.

After a while, he laughed, softly, and we both pulled our hands away.

"Penny for your thoughts," I said, rubbing my nose.

"I just realised that I'm quite thankful Jocasta Cameron is in Canada and not here. Especially since I was once engaged to your daughter."

I laughed. "Yes, it's probably for the best. I don't think any explanation, even the truth, would satisfy her."

"What is the truth?"

"Well," I said, "we have known each other for years."

"Yes, that's true. And, after all, it's thanks to you that I still have all my teeth."

My confusion must've registered on my face, for he laughed. After taking another drink of his brandy, he said, "When I was governor of Ardsmuir, I made the mistake of asking Jamie Fraser what on God's earth he was doing, picking watercress and other such weeds. He fixed me with that indomitable look of his and informed me that eating greens would prevent scurvy."

I had told him that, in the first year of our marriage. Again, my face gave me away, as John nodded.

"Yes, he said that was what you'd told him."

"And that stayed with you, did it?" There was no sharpness in my voice; I was genuinely curious.

"It did," he said, simply.

Memory is a funny thing. Long dormant things will suddenly rise to the surface, out of nowhere, despite the passage of many years. The memory that arose for me just then brought with it the smell of woodsmoke and the chill of an autumn night.

"That's what we were discussing, Jamie and I, the night we met you."

Despite the relative darkness of the room, I saw John's face growing slightly red.

"I owe you many things, John," I said softly. That young boy of sixteen had grown into the man before me now.

He said nothing, merely raised his glass and took a deep swallow. After setting it down again, he asked, almost rhetorically, "War has defined all our lives, has it not?"

More than you know, I thought, remembering the bombs that would fall on England in approximately a hundred and seventy years.

"I lost my father due to the earlier Jacobite uprisings. My first lover, Hector, died at Culloden. And now the - " he paused, clearing his throat. I knew what he was going to say, for, after all, it was the same thing I would have said. _The man I have loved for nearly all my life._

John continued. "Now Jamie is dead, in part due to his stubborn convictions. I am dreadfully afraid I will lose my son in this war that is come upon us."

My own throat caught at his speech. I too was worried about Willie. I knew, as only a handful of other people did, that William Clarence Henry George, ninth Earl of Ellesmere, was, in fact, Jamie's biological son. Jamie had been careful not to let the boy see him last year, but both Bree and Roger had, before they'd left. The resemblance was startling, to say the least.

"He's a very smart boy," I said. "And a capable soldier, from what I'm given to understand."

He smiled faintly, a father's pride writ upon his face.

I continued. "It's never easy, watching them grow up. And you never stop worrying."

John being John, he immediately looked concerned for me. While he did not know the specific details, John knew that Bree and her family were far away. "Brianna is a credit to both of her parents. In fact, if I may say so, Brianna is a credit to both her fathers, as well."

I had been staring down at the finely wrought glass in my hands, but I jerked my head up quickly.

"I hadn't realised that Brianna mentioned him to you."

"We had many, ahem, interesting talks while at River Run."

I could only imagine they had, given that, as Brianna had later told me, she'd tried to blackmail him into marrying her. I took a sip of brandy before responding, "Yes, Frank was a good father to Brianna."

"But not a good husband?"

"I loved him," I said softly. "But not in the way he wanted. I hurt him deeply, without meaning to."

"Unfortunately, that is an easy thing to do."

"What of your first wife?" I asked then, cautiously. Although I was undeniably curious, John and I had talked of her on only a few occasions.

John sighed. "It started off well enough. But people can come to resent each other, to grow cold. I couldn't give her what she wanted, in the end."

"It was a bit like that for me, too." I wasn't sure I wanted to tell John more, with the echo of Frank's words in my head still, but I had started this particular conversational vein. I continued on, feeling a bit like I was at confession. "You see, I knew Frank before I met Jamie." Strictly speaking, that was true. John was merely under the mistaken assumption that Jamie was my first husband and I could not correct him about that. "When we met again, after Culloden, I couldn't go back to being who I was before. He stayed with me because of Brianna, you see. But I could never forget Jamie."

He gestured towards my right hand, where Jamie's ring lay. "He was always thinking of you," he said, with a lopsided half-smile that did little to disguise the hurt beneath it.

His words hit me like a blow to the solar plexus, taking out all my breath. I could think of no way to respond to that, so I just sat there, trying to get the pain to ease.

"Who decided upon William as a name?" I asked finally, blatantly changing the subject.

A true gentleman, John picked up the new topic with ease. "In truth, I do not know. I was not there when he was born. Why do you ask?"

"Jamie's brother was named Willie."

John stilled, almost imperceptibly. "I didn't know he had a brother."

"I never met him. He was the eldest, but he died at the age of eleven."

"It's not easy to try to follow in your brother's footsteps," he commented, somewhat wryly.

"I wouldn't know. I was an only child."

"As was Brianna," John observed. "Small wonder she was so determined to see William. I know you miss her."

"Yes," I said simply, feeling the slight pinpricks of tears beginning to form.

"I do, too," he said quietly, raising his glass to his lips.

Looking at John then, as he tilted back the glass and drained the rest of his brandy, it occurred to me that he was a very good looking man. Unlike some men, he had aged well. And I also realised that he'd never been told the origin of Jamie's repugnance. But what would it matter now, I asked myself, with Jack Randall long buried in the earth and Jamie lost to the depths of the sea?

I had, I must admit, been jealous and somewhat resentful of John when I'd realised the exact nature of his feelings towards Jamie. Not just that John loved him, but I had been afraid of the damage that it might do to Jamie, especially with the spectre of Jack Randall that remained over his shoulder from time to time. But I had respected John deeply, even when I had felt threatened by him, and had grown to care for him a great deal over the years. His many kindnesses to my family were valued by us all. Especially now, when I had found myself all alone.

I was also exceedingly fond of his son, despite the fact that it pierced my heart to see such similar expressions, ones I had witnessed so many times on Jamie or Bree's faces, echoed on Willie's face.

As far as choices of husbands went, I considered myself extremely fortunate.

I stood and came round the desk, then bent over, brushing my lips against his cheek.

"My dear John, try and get some sleep. Doctor's orders."

Leaving John to finish his letters, I returned to my room. It was only after getting back into bed that it struck me: Lovat's line continued on with Bree's children. A boy and a girl, perhaps even another one by now.

And Willie was also a descendant of Lord Lovat, even though he himself remained blissfully unaware of that fact. This time, the hairs on the back of my neck rose. Dear God. What if Willie were somehow to play a part in the prophecy? What if I were meant to keep him safe, to find a way for him to return to England without shaming his commission or impugning his honour?

I shook my head. I didn't even believe in the prophecy. I would have blamed it on the night and the brandy and the voices I thought I'd heard, but I had seen - and lived - impossible things. Yet if there was one thing I did know, it was that I trusted in the future. I knew the end result of this war, just as I had known what would happen at Culloden. I trusted in Bree and Roger and my darling grandchildren, in the Scotland of the future.

Turning over onto my side, I focused on regulating my breathing, trying to slip quickly into sleep. There would be lots of work to do in the coming days.

I should have expected a third ghost. Not only did Scrooge receive three, but my talk with John had raised many things that had long been buried. But there was no voice this time, only Jamie's presence and the feel of his lips pressed gently against mine.

I slept, then.

 


End file.
